Early in his first term, Barack Obama raised a lot of eyebrows by his (now-infamous) action of returning to the British a bust of Winston Churchill. This error was compounded by giving as a gift to the British Prime minister a gift of DVDs of classic American movies, in a format incompatible with British DVD players.

A lot of time was spent either rationalizing this behaviour away, or analyzing it, but the consensus, after a time, was Officially DeclaredTM to be a mixture of "SQUIRREL!" and "Anti-Imperialist" together with references to the Brit treatment of the Mau-Maus in Africa, hints of Obama's anti-colonialism, and subtle insinuations of RaaaaaaacimTM against anyone *daring* to question his assholiness in any way.

The incident would have been forgotten, given the myriad of other malapropisms and provocations emanating daily from Barack-Dûr, except for the latest attention being paid to the so-called Fiscal Cliff.

The Fiscal Cliff is the term given by members of the Ministry of Propaganda (NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, and leading print publications) to the consequences of a joint act of budgetary cowardice passed in a previous session of Congress, which prolonged the tax rates passed under President Bush, but only for a temporary duration, and set to expire, reverting to the much higher Clinton tax rates, at the end of this year; along with the prospect of (in the absence of a new act of cowardice or kicking the can down the road) automatic across-the-board spending cuts. The interesting thing, is how the GOP, which has historically been viewed as the party of tax cuts, has misplayed this, allowing themselves to be painted as supporting only "tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, for millionaires and billionaires" while at the same time, alienating the Tea Party activists and other fiscal conservatives by engaging in inside-the-beltway chicanery to remove true conservatives from favored Committee Assignments within the House of Representatives. Would it have been too much to expect Weepy Boner (Quisling-OH), the Nutless-Wonder Speaker of the House, at least to take a verbal shot in public at multimillionaire Democrats such as John F'ing Kerry (Pussy/Gigolo-MA), or two of the Worlds Wealthiest Men, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates; or even to point out the difference between a *wealth* tax and an *income* tax?

And it was pondering on this last point which led to this essay. In considering the phrase "millionaires and billionaires" I was reminded of this excellent article by the inimitable Iowahawk which showed how quickly the accumulated wealth of *all* the "millionaires and billionaires" would be depleted to feed the voracious maw of the Obama's budgetary Leviathan. And this, of course, is the dirty little secret. As the legend says of Willie Sutton, that he robbed banks because "that's where the money is," it is also true that the Government will seek to get its funding from the middle class, because *that* is where the money is. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are about 141 million people employed in the US today (the labor force participation rate is about 63.8% according to this table).

Now the current value of the national debt is approximately $16 trillion, or 16 thousand billions, or 160 thousand hundred millions, or 160 million hundred thousands...or, to a rough estimate, one hundred ten thousand dollars for every person employed in the U.S.: in other words, imaging your average median-income worker making $50,000 a year, owing TWICE his GROSS salary.

Oh, that's right. That doesn't count credit card debt ($900 billion) or college loan debt ($1 trillion); and it doesn't count the combined debts of the various blue states such as Calfornia and Illinois; and it doesn't count the unfunded IOUs for GOVERNMENT PENSIONS for all the retired government workers in all those blue states; and it doesn't count the money needed for Social Security, AFDC, and other social safety net programs right now; nor does it count the money needed to pay for all those programs in the future; and don't even get me started on all the money for Foreign Aid to places like Pakistan, or funding for the U.N.

Sometimes, it seems like practically everyone on the entire FRICKING PLANET has their hands in your pocket. and mine; as though the long-beleaguered middle class of the United States, is expected to support not only their own family, their own schools, their own neighborhood, county, state, and the Federal Government; but also most of the rest of the freeloaders, moochers, and hard-luck stories of the rest of the planet as well.

"Never before in the history of human endeavor, has so much money been borrowed from so few." Or something like that.

Yes, it would. Let's get real. In the absence of more useful options, Churchill drank, smoked, painted, wrote, and remodeled. I don't smoke, but at least I can drink and mop, although not at the same time, because wine would make the floor sticky and I'd have to mop again.

4
posted on 12/23/2012 7:40:45 PM PST
by Tax-chick
(If I had two dead rats, I'd give you one.)

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